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lack of religion does not equal lack of morals.
the original reasoning behind separation of church and state was to keep the state out of the church's business, but why is it now ok for the churches to get involved in the state's? we start making laws based on one religion's dogma and we enter into the one thing soundman said we should not do: forcing religious laws onto people who do not adhere to that dogma. the tenets mentioned in his post are not unique to any one religion or ism; they are universal ideas that ensure a safe and prosperous society. it's the other stuff, the stuff based on the sketchy prophecies and even sketchier translations of a book that was commissioned and edited by a group of men, politicians, with an agenda. their goals may have been noble to them at the time, but many of them no longer apply to modern times. to borrow a phrase, the road to hell...
the bible is, in many places, contradictory to itself and it's an individual followers prerogative to decide what they believe to have been the true word of their god, not a bunch of legislators and theocrats to duke it out in federal courts. an eye for an eye? turn the other cheek? generally applied, they are good concepts, but lets’ take a look at the doctrines of the prophet ezekiel (broken down into very general ideas) - should we begin a 1000 years of christian rule, incite the armageddon, just so that jesus may return to earth and we can have 1000 years of peace? and because it's diffucult to draw a line in the sand and say "do not cross", there would be those that say it's all or nothing, you either accept the dogma in its entirety or you accept none of it. can you imagine the debates that this would spark? it’s this kind of practical problem that has people worried about allowing any form of religion into the politics and foreign policy of one of the world’s superpowers. a superpower, i might add, that has no problems forcing their ideas of governance upon a people so why would we stop at governance? what’s to stop us from constituting a court that would, say, enforce certain legal restrictions on non-catholics or non-cristians? that’s been tried, it was called the spanish inquisition. and, sadly, there are those out there that would be all to happy to start another one; they have no place in government.
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